The main objective of this mini-teach is to have students in grades four to twelve generate their own data and then analyze their information. Some of the ideas that could be taught are: mean, mode, and median histogram bar graph probability circle graph

Materials Needed:

A piece of ribbon or rope that is at least 20 inches long A package of post-its or a bunch of little squares of paper about 1.5"x1.5" or 2" x 2" A roll of masking tape A classroom set of M&M candy bags A wall or blackboard A calculator

Strategy:

Hold up a piece of rope or string. Have the students write down the length of this rope or ribbon on their piece of paper. Then have a number line on the board. Have the students come up to the board and place their estimates on the board with their post-its on the number line. Depending on the level of the students, you could teach or introduce an appropriate lesson on analyzing the data from a simple bar graph, quartiles, box and whiskers, outliers, to standard deviation. This demonstration could also be done by guessing the number of M&M's in a cup. The results would be similar. Lower grade students could do circle graphs of the contents of individual bags.

Performance Assessment:

I can tell how much students have mastered these concepts through a discussion or a written evaluation.